Chocolate - All About Chocolate - Growing Chocolate

All About Chocolate: Growing Chocolate

Introduction: Growing Cacao for Chocolate

Cacao’s Rainforest Connections
In the rainforest, the tallest trees can grow up to 150 feet. They form the upper canopy, which shades smaller understory trees like cacao.

The leaves of upper canopy trees create a sheltering umbrella that filters out the harsh sun and wind for the shorter understory trees below.

Animals depend upon cacao.
Cacao and its neighboring trees perform an important function. They provide homes and food for other valuable animals and organisms.

Cacao depends upon animals.
One good turn deserves another. These same animals, insects, and other organisms give back to the cacao tree. For example, tiny flies called “midges” (which live in the debris from decaying rainforest plants) pollinate the cacao tree’s flowers so that pods develop.

Humans get valuable resources from rainforests around the globe.

We rely on the rainforest, too—and not just for chocolate. Many important medicines used to treat all sorts of ailments (such as heart disease, cancer, and AIDS) come from rainforest plants:

	Rainforest Vegetables—chile peppers, cassava (yucca), some kinds of squash, and true yams
	Rainforest Fruits—avocado, lemons, limes, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos, passion fruit, and papaya
	Rainforest Nuts and Spices—cinnamon, clove, ginger, black pepper, cayenne, turmeric, vanilla, Brazil nuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, and peanuts
	Rainforest Medicines—curare (a muscle relaxant), quinine (a treatment for malaria), annatto (an antiseptic and diuretic), and rosy periwinkle (an agent for chemotherapy)

Continue to Cacao, Chocolate's Source

Midges, the insects that pollinate cacao, have the fastest wingbeat of any creature on earth—1,000 beats per second!

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